Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the author of the new book, River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster.

2 Articles
oamed freely as a child, near Twin Pines. In the distance, a well site emits a flare that can be seen and heard from miles away. Rob Zeigler

Indigenous activists try to quell a rising tide of oil and gas exploration in Chaco Canyon

On the warm, pre-monsoon night of July 11, 2016, fire broke out among a cluster of six newly drilled oil wells near the small Navajo community of Nageezi, New Mexico. The residents of nearby homes fled to the highway, where they watched huge curdling balls of orange flame boil up into the vast bowl of dark sky above their corner of the Greater Chaco Region.
By Jonathan Thompson in News | March 6th 2018